“So you went to help your brother, but not as a representative of the sept?”

“I was one of a number of green dragons who ignored Fodor’s decision. We risked going ouroboros, but we honored the agreements we had long held with the black dragons. Fodor was not pleased, regardless.” Drake looked back out the window at the lights as they flashed by. “I was fighting at the time to be recognized as his heir, and he threatened to have me removed from the rolls if I lent aid to Kostya. The point was moot—by the time we arrived to help Kostya, the silver dragons had almost destroyed what remained of the sept. I watched sword in hand as my brother slew his wyvern, and was almost killed himself by the man for whom he was named.”

I searched my memory of dragon history but came up blank. “Who was that?”

“Constantine Norka. He was the first silver wyvern. It was he whom Baltic cursed.”

“Wow.” I mulled over the weighty history that Drake had told me, my sympathies divided between Gabriel’s people and the hell Kostya must have gone through watching his leader destroy the sept trying to regain what would never be theirs. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Kostya is crazy. I think he’s probably just frustrated as hell, and he’s jumping at any excuse to get back into action.”

“Possibly.”

I would have pumped him for more information—I wasn’t about to let his unusually verbose mood slip away unheeded—but István slammed his foot on the brakes in front of a large, exclusive London hotel. Jim and I scrambled to follow after Drake as the two men bolted out of the car, István pausing long enough to toss the keys at a valet with instructions to keep the car handy. We got a few strange looks from the scattering of people in the lobby at the early hour, but no one stopped us as we ran to the bank of elevators.

Pál emerged from the stairwell and joined us.

“Is Gabriel all right?” I asked him.

“I do not know. Kostya would not let me in. You talked to him?” he asked Drake as we got into the elevator.

“Yes. He says he has not done anything yet, that he wants witnesses from all four septs before he takes action.”

“Witnesses?” I asked, scandalized. “Why would he want witnesses to his planned genocide?”

“The witnesses are to ensure he receives votes to allow his sept back into the weyr. He does not wish to exterminate the silver dragons, mate; he wishes to annex them, to bring them back where he believes they belong.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’d say the fact that the silver dragons wiped out the black ones pretty much says what they think of that whole annexing deal.”

“I agree, but that is not what concerns me now.”

“What does concern you? Oh, that phylactery thing? What exactly is that? I know you said it’s old, and some sort of amulet, but does it have super dragon powers or something?”

“It is hard to explain. It holds great significance to dragonkin, although there are no powers directly derived from possessing it. Its value is based more on what it represents: a symbol of the primal forces coming together to create the first dragon. It is widely thought that to hold it is to be at one with those forces. Chuan Ren held it for many centuries, at the height of the red dragons’ supremacy, but it was lost sometime around the first millennium. Baltic had it during the Endless War—some say that was why the black dragons came out of that war relatively unscathed. I would dearly like to know just how and when it came into Fiat’s possession.”

“Yeah, makes you wonder about that mysterious little apartment and who was living there. I wonder—”

A drunken party girl and her equally drunken escort got onto the elevator at that moment. The girl spotted Drake and lurched toward him, an inviting smile on her face as she thrust her barely concealed breasts at him. “Hello, handsome. Would you hold me against you if I told you it was beautiful?”

I pushed myself between her and Drake. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he? And very taken.”

“Fat bitch,” she snapped, sulking for a moment until she spotted Pál. Her companion slouched against the wall of the elevator, too far gone to care, I guess.

The door opened at our floor and we exited, leaving the drunken woman to pout as Pál avoided her grasp. I stopped just outside the door, pulled on Drake’s fire, and set alight a ring at her feet. She shrieked and flapped her arms wildly as the doors started to close. I drew a quick ward on them, and before the outer doors blocked my way, mentally stamped out the fire. I turned to find Drake watching me with crossed arms and a cocked eyebrow.

“What?” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to bat my eyelashes at him.

“You locked them in there with fire?”

“There was a fire extinguisher,” I said. “Of course, she’s probably too drunk to notice it or know how to use it, but that’s hardly my problem.”

Drake continued to give me the Eyebrow of Much Displeasure.

“There were sprinklers as well. They’re sure to go off at some point…oh, for heaven’s sake, Drake! What sort of person do you take me for? I put out the fire just before the doors closed, OK? I just wanted to scare her a little. I may be a demon lord, but I’m not a demon lord! I wouldn’t barbecue a person just because she called me fat.”

“Hey, Ash, you know that you’re getting fa—”

“You are not a person,” I told Jim. “If you don’t want me to singe off a few whiskers, you’ll pipe down.”

“Yeesh!” it answered, trailing behind us as we hurried down the corridor to Gabriel’s suite.

Part of me, the fanciful part, the part that loved nothing more than a good epic historical novel filled with battles, valiant and incredibly sexy knights, and equally valiant but still retaining a core sense of femininity (not to mention confident and professional) damsels who fight at their side, expected to see some sort of gigantic battle raging within the confines of Gabriel’s suite. I imagined blood, and possibly a little gore, with the harsh sound of swords clanging together above the manly rumble of male voices calling abuse to each other.

What I didn’t expect to see was Gabriel bound to a chair, Maata and Tipene on the floor beside him, facedown, their arms bound behind their backs. Bastian and Kostya stood next to a window, arguing in hushed voices. Sitting on a couch all by his lonesome was Li, Chuan Ren’s mate.